


From 15 to 40 - or Steves and Clints lives through the years

by Aijja



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3672135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aijja/pseuds/Aijja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbleish collection of lives of the two boys and few others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From 15 to 40 - or Steves and Clints lives through the years

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for years and after thinking about it for a week I started writing this.   
> I'm sorry for anything weird in the grammar and about the run on sentences.
> 
> This started out really Clint-centric but then the focus shifted. Hups.

Clint is fifteen, blond and dirty and he has a gab between his front teeth. His shoulders feel too big and clumsy and he is too short, when he compares himself to his brother (which he does. Always). He's also foster kid in a really nice neighborhood, living with the Coulsons. Phil is a suit (Clint doesn't know what he does) and Audrey plays cello( she's really good and sweet and way too much like his mother) He's angry at them but he's angry at everyone so it doesn't seem to matter to them too much. He's angry because this isn't going to last, because Barney is in juvy and it will not take too long before he's there as well. There aren't many things that Clint knows because Clint is (stupid, carny, hobo, faggot, useless) everything that Phil and Audrey don't want/need. So Clint snarls and mocks and is difficult (but never hurts either of them) he goes to school and falls asleep during English (it's hard the letters jumping and skipping in front of him), doodles during history and can't keep his mouth shut in maths. He's good with numbers, they're logical, they do what he wants them to do but it doesn't matter because he's a nuisance. He's just baiting his time until they kick him out (it's been three weeks) and he's back with Barney. In Juvy where he belongs.  
Steve is small and scrappy for a teenager as he fights behind the dumpsters as a demon. He knows he's lost but like hell he's giving up. There are three guys and he has managed to give a few bruised shins and one nice looking shiner until he's pinned against the wall by two of them. The last one fetches a broken 2 by 4 that was peeking from one of the dumpsters and raises it high. Steve closes his eyes and turns his head preparing for the pain. But there is a sudden loud crack and the guy (Grant? Gary? Steve doesn't remember) lets out a pained curse as he drops the plank. The two guys holding him loosen their hold as they stare at the alleys opening. Steve can't see anything that's happening but he hears the THUMP as something hits and the guy in front of him crumbles to the ground. And then Steve can see the guy (who's tossing a few fist sized rocks in his hands without looking at them), who's smirking and cocky, and against the orange of the setting sun he looks like a movie(scratch that, a comic book)hero.  
"I ran out of soft things to throw. So i suggest you beat it , before I make you bleed," the guy smiles and stops his juggling and pulls his left arm back, ready to throw. The asshole to his left lets Steve's arm go and starts to charge this new 'threat'. The guys arm moves back and forward like a snake strike as the stone flies and hits the guy on his leg somewhere. Steve can't see because he's busy kicking the one on his right and then headbutting him, before he thrashes free and starts running away. His.. help? savior? (he's not a fairy tale heroine dammit) looks like he considers staying and drawing blood but Steve takes his hand and pulls at his arm until the bigger guy follows him and they are running through the streets.

Steve picks Clint up on their last day of school. He's still smaller than Clint but not as sick anymore, his asthma mostly dormant now. It still hurts that he can't join Clint in the army (he wants to do good) but he has a full ride to university and he's going to be an artist (or maybe he wants to go to social studies, he's not sure yet) but whatever it is after this day, after the next few months they will not be the same again. But then Clint comes from the front door, sprinting and jumping to the front seat (the car belongs to his mother who will hitch a ride with Buckys parents) and Steve forgets the future because Clint starts running his mouth immediately. He complains about the shirt and tie he's wearing, the stupid gowns and hats they are forced to wear, the zit behind his ear that won't go away (and it hurts man). Steve hums and agrees but doesn't interrupt. He feels nostalgic already and they haven't even graduated yet. When they arrive he parks nect to their friends cars and gets out, Bucky and Nat grap them and start pulling them because apparently they're late (no they are not). Steve grabs at Clint's hand and pulls. Clint follows laughing and two hours later they are done with school and Nat makes a speech that punches through Steves heart because nothing will ever be the same. 

The sun has set and they are lying on the ground with pillows and throwbacks. Bucky has built a fire and Nat has made it sparkle purple flames from time to time (it's magic you dorks, she says when they ask her about it). Clint laughs about it and stares into the fire. They are drinking (beer, wine coolers, Nat has vodka that makes their throat burn) but they don't want to get wasted. This is their last weekend together. Come Monday Bucky and Clint ship off (to different bases, so far away from each other, from the others) and Nat moves the next Friday to university. She got into Ivy league college with scholarship so she's going to change the world. Steve believes this because she's smart and beautiful with hint of danger (a woman with iron spine). But for now Steve will tease her about the spider in her hair (she doesn't let them touch it) and clink bottles with Bucky when Clint rolls and rests his head against his leg. They drink and laugh and stair at the stars vowing to change the world, they can do it, because they have been through a lot this far and it has made them stronger, better. When the stars come up they wrack their brains and make up stories about them (Nat knows the most but Clint is the best at pure bullshitting). Time passes and when the fire dies Bucky and Nat retire to the other tent. Clint waggles his eyebrows and Steve laughs and pulls him up to take a walk. They take torches and the last wine coolers and head away from the pair. They find a perfect tree, big old, with gnarly branches and Clint helps Steve climb it up until they are sitting on one huge branch, feet tangling and looking through the branches. They are not together like their two friends but Clint can't resist the temptation to kiss Steve, so he does. Steve kisses back and they share quiet laughs, whispered words and sweet kisses until the sky starts to turn orange and they head back. They get a few hours sleep until Bucky wakes them up with a yell and jumps on them, causing Steves shoulder to pop out its socket. They are laughing in tears when they sit and wait on the early Sunday morning in the ER.

Steve is on his second year in a college and he hasn't seen Clint in a year. There are occasional letters (Clint has never been good with writing) and even fewer phone calls. Nat says that she heard from Bucky (who's overseas, unreachable for a long time) that the army had selected their friend for some serious extra training. She says that it means Clint will get more education, more training and his career in the Army looks good because of it. Steve smiles into the phone when he hangs up. He misses Clint but it's good that he has a career, a future (and he doesn't feel bitter, he doesn't). Bucky comes home for a few weeks in the summer and Steve sees Natasha as well. Clint doesn't come but he phones them and there is laughter in his voice and in the background and it's good. Two days before Bucky leaves again Steves mother dies. He knew she was sick but it still kicks him down and he can't get up without help. Luckily Bucky is there and then Nat is there and they hold him up as they lay her to the ground. No one hears from Clint as they pack the stuff from apartment he grew up in and load his car (his now, not hers). They share a last lunch together then and Bucky gives Nat a lift to the train station while Steve starts the long drive to university. He has no reason to look back.

Clint is full of aches and bruises as he falls onto his bunk. He loves it here, the routine (something he never thought he'd like), the exercises and the other soldiers. They are soldiers now, he's a soldier and they are gonna be the best, he's going to be the best there can be. So he gives them his everything (his fitness, his aim, his eyes) and then he's selected to give more. He gives them his strategic mind, his ability to read other people, to see weaknesses ( be they structures, people or something else). And for the first time he feels truly useful again, he makes friends, he gets few promotions as they keep educating him, giving him more training. He hasn't phoned back to the others in six months when a letter arrives from Steve and he plummets back down. Steve tells that his mother died, months ago and Clint hadn't been there (had ignored when he could have called, he has more important things to do, to be important)and Steve has a girlfriend and he's doing good and he hopes Clint is doing as well. He tells that if Clint doesn't want to be in touch anymore he understands, understands that Clint has a new life and tells him to enjoy it. Clint swallows (it feels painful) and folds the letter carefully and puts it in his pocket. Steve has a life now, he does good back there, don't need him no more. So he doesn't answer to the letter, cuts ties and focuses forward. He has done this before, he can do it again. It's not the first time he's been unwanted when others go forward (he doesn't think about Barney and his angry words, angrier fists). Steve and Bucky and Nat have always been too good for him, he knows that. Nat will rule the world if she wants to and Bucky is in the army but he gets 'proper' education as opposed to Clint who just gets taught how to take things apart. And Steve (small, fierce boy in the alley, heart of gold and lips so soft) he'll be an artist or a teacher or someone that allows him to help others, because that's who Steve is. So Clint straightens his back, pockets the letter and promptly gets drunk the next time they have leave and then lets himself get fucked against a wall in alley by one of his squad mates. And if there are tears in his eyes it's from getting bitten and nothing else (seriously Wilson, cut it). Wilson laughs and runs his tongue across the gap between his teeth (Clint bites him). 

Two months after his mother dies Steve meets Peggy Carter. She's English and beautiful and perfect (and she doesn't mind that he's skinny and tall and awkward around her). He switches to social studies but takes art still seriously and Peggy is here for a year studying international politics.   
5 months later he and Peggy practically live together and he hasn't heard anything from Clint he writes a letter. Wants Clint to be happy, wants him to do what he wants and not look back. He never hears back and he assures his friends (Bucky, Nat and Peggy) that it's fine that they just have grown apart from each other (Bucky vows to never let it happen between them and Nat nods)  
7 months later Nat runs for student council and orders the campaign poster from Steve. Steve laughs and does as he wants with it (Peggy helps her course on propaganda helping awfully lot). He sends them to Nat and one month later there's a letter for him. It informs him that Nat is now a in for it and also a check for hundred dollars (he doesn't ask where the money came from). He laughs even more and takes Peggy to dinner.  
When the year comes to end Peggy manages to snatch an internship within the UN and stays and Steve couldn't be happier. Three weeks after moving officially together there's a letter from the Buckys parents. Bucky has gone MIA in a war zone and the expectations aren't good. Steve cries and tries to call Nat but there's no answer.  
A month later Bucky comes back without an arm and without a spirit. They take him to live with them and that's how Steve meets two important people: Tony Stark (who wants to use Bucky to use his prosthetic arm, to make it work, to make it marketable) and Sam Wilson. After the summer ends Pecky kisses him and moves back to England (not his fault, not Buckys fault but she's ambitious and she can't continue studying here). Steve is heartbroken and left alone with Bucky who gets a bit more life in him with everyday, with every meeting with Stark (Steve doesn't like him) with every quiet evening inside.

Clint runs and runs but he doesn't get far enough and he's caught in the explosion. He gets thrown, his back burns and his head is filled with loud static noise. He can taste blood in his mouth as he lifts his head and forces himself to crawl away. Away from the smoky hell that the building has turned into. He feels the chopper above him and hopes it's his guys and not the others (he can't even remember who they were meant to eliminate). Soon there are strong arms lifting him to the chopper and he can see Wilson next to him being tended to. His friend looks even worse, all burned up (or maybe it's just the clothes and the blood and..) Clint faints when the chopper lifts off, and he's goddamn thankful of it.  
It takes three weeks to learn how to walk again (his balance is shot) and a month for him to be able to sleep on his back. It takes even longer for him to get hearing aids and at first they barely help. But before he can be fitted better he's deemed ready and his superior officer comes in and tells him he can no longer serve. Clint blinks at him and asks him to repeat. Afterwards he's left with a timetable to collect his things and the information for his benefit package. He locks himself into a bathroom for a while and calms himself down from a panic attack (he thinks it's one, it fits the description he had learned from the medical training). Then he has a cup of coffee, thinks for a while and calls Natasha (he doesn't think he has the right to call her Nat anymore). He cries in the phone but when he leaves (is kicked off) Nat is there waiting him with the Coulsons. Clint cries again as they hug him and he clings to Nat as they're herded in the car and then he's again in the car being driven off from a place he felt like he belonged (maybe he'll never belong anywhere for long).   
Clint is 26 and fresh out of the army with money that won't last him forever and living on his own but just a few miles away from the Coulsons. He can't go to uni and he can't get a job (or won't get a job, he's not sure it the problem is with him, the economy or him) when he spots the newspaper article. It's from a Tony Stark art show that has turned into a huge success and pushed the career of a new artist, Steven Rogers. Clint stares at the picture, at the smiling men and he wonders if he would have recognized Steve if it didn't have his name. Steve is healthy and muscled and looks like the jocks he used to get in fights with (but with gentler smile and amused eyes). He briefly wonders if Steve would recognize him but dismisses the thought. He's nothing like he was before and it's better this way (Steve deserves someone better, someone healthy, someone complete). He folds the paper when he spots the ad for a garage. He tears it off and heads out the door a half hour later. By next day he has a job fixing cars (and being taught how to fix them better, to do more) and he smiles for the first time in a while.

 

Steve is 29 and he's Buckys best-man for the wedding (Nat had proposed, said that it would look good when she tries for the congress in a few years). It will be small and intimate and Steve is in charge of decorations (he has the artistic eye apparently) and everything goes smoothly until Nat walks down the aisle and Clint is the one escorting her. Clint who radiates happiness and who has no more gap between his teeth and it's been so long since Steve has wanted someone this much. He gapes at him (fortunately all the others look at Nat and no one notices) and Clint beams back as he gives Nat away and steps to stand on the other side (with Maria Hill who's either Nats best friend or enemy). The rest of the ceremony flies by and later there is food and laughter and Steve has no time to ask anything important from Clint who sits on the opposite side of the table. Even later when it's dusk and starlight and vodka and apple pie moonshine Steve sits next to Clint and they talk while Tony Stark gets drunk with Sam. They have too much years between them and not enough time and when they're ushered off the premises they end up curled up on Steves bed and they just lie there (Clint has taken off the hearing aids) and stare at each other and fall asleep.   
The next morning Nat hits them both over the head and scolds them between mimosas and croissants and other things and Clint whines and Steve laughs (his arm is draped over Clints shoulders). They exchange numbers and hugs and leave but not like before, not ever like before.

 

Clint is 30 and fallen in love all over again when the owner of the garage dies and leaves him the business. Clint mourns and then panics and then he calls Phil and Nat (in that order). Phil laughs at him and makes him promise discounts with Lola in exchange of the help with legal paperwork. Nat hums and says he's earned it and ask him what he wants to do. Clint doesn't know until Nat laughs at him and he can hear Bucky mutter "idiots" in the background. So Clint hangs up and calls Steve. Three months later Steve lives with him in their new home (that Steve bought, Steve has that kind of money know) with its fences and garden. Clint panics at the responsibility (the neighbors hate him, he's trash why is he here) until Steve wraps him in his arms (he can do that now) and comforts him until he calms down. Then they go inside and have beer and wine-coolers (Steve still doesn't like beer and fuck you Bucky) and Steve makes grilled cheese with tomatoes and all good things while Clint makes a salad. The next morning Steve says that he wants to try to work in the field, make kids life better and Clint agrees (he remembers the anger, the fear) and think Steve can make some good in the world. Steve kisses him and says that they are going to make good in the world as he pushes papers about foster parenting across the breakfast bar.

Clint and Steve are 40 when they watch Kate graduate from high school. She's not their real daughter and she calls them Steve and Clint but damn if the feeling in Clints chest isn't parental pride. That year Nat becomes the first female president and Bucky is declared the hottest celebrity husband. Steve laughs until he cries and Clint starts planning a barbecue to celebrate it.


End file.
